


acta non verba

by distelhawk



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, not happy at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-17
Updated: 2013-08-17
Packaged: 2017-12-23 20:31:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/930810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distelhawk/pseuds/distelhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes in life, things happen that you don’t think about, that you not once in your wildest imagination believe could happen. And when they do, you stop for a moment and you look to your left and to your right and wonder, just for a split second, if this is actually your life or if someone somewhere fucked something up and you’ve ended up in someone else’s fuckfest of a life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	acta non verba

**Author's Note:**

> I ... I think I need to apologize for this.  
> Not really beta read, so all the mistakes are mine.

**acta non verba**

Sometimes in life, things happen that you don’t think about, that you not once in your wildest imagination believe could happen. And when they do, you stop for a moment and you look to your left and to your right and wonder, just for a split second, if this is actually your life or if someone somewhere fucked something up and you’ve ended up in someone else’s fuckfest of a life.

In the business that we are in, you expect certain things. You expect injuries and pain, deception and lies. You accept them and learn to deal with them and you move on with your life. You live it with as much of a Carpe Diem attitude as you can because the biggest secret of them all, the one thing everyone knows but no one really ever talks about is the fact that it could literally all be over the next day, the next hour, the next minute.

It’s something everyone knows and accepts, at least by the time you’ve made your first kill, saw what the poets call light leave someone’s eyes. And if you still haven’t gotten it then, you should really think about a carrier change.

We are killers and being in the business of killing tends to lead to the high chance of someone repaying in kind.

We don’t imagine getting old, buying a house and a dog and the stupid white picket fence. It’s not in the cards and you don’t even think about it; because there is no reason for wasted dreams.

Sometimes, though, life has different plans.

I can’t really say when I fell in love with you. Maybe it was when my arrow missed your throat. Not because I had an off day, but because you threw me off. Maybe it was when you laughed at one of my jokes for the first time, months later, or the way you were scared of the sound of your own laughter right after.

There was never much happiness in our lives, yours and mine, though knowing what I know now, I feel confident when I say that I until today, I was the lucky one between the two of us.

Maybe that was when I knew I would never let you go, that time you told me with that distant face of yours of a childhood spend first killing yourself and then others. And I fell for you because regardless of it all,you found yourself again, or remade yourself or found who you wanted to be.

It took us a long time. For all of our talk of Carpe Diem, we preferred Abundans Cautela Non Nocet. We were careful.

I still sometimes cannot believe you chose me. Considering the people we worked and lived with, I still don’t quite know what you saw in me but I have learned not to question it.

We made it a life the only way we knew how. It was never easy but most of all, it was never boring.

We laughed louder and screamed stronger and fucked harder than anyone else I know but it was perfect in its messiness.

I think I know why it took us so long to realize what was going on. We didn’t expect it. What we do, how we live, this just never comes up.

I think I might have noticed it before you did. You got winded more quickly than you used to. You sat down more often, started taking the elevator instead of the stairs.

I remember the fight we had that day I made you go to Bruce for a check-up. You were pale and I managed to pin you to the mat five times out of six. Maybe you already knew, or suspected. Maybe that was why you got angry, threw me out of the apartment and made me ask Tony for a guest room and for five days, you didn’t talk to me, not a word.

I’m sorry – not sure if I ever said that – sorry for the way I pushed back then. I should have done it differently. But I was worried, so fucking worried you have no idea. There were two times in my life when I got drunk with Tony Stark. One was at my Bachelor Party and the other was while I crashed in his guest room. I don’t think my liver ever quite forgave me for that. Needless to say that is the reason I stopped drinking Whiskey. I consumed enough for a lifetime in those days.

When you came to me after five days – what was it, 4am? – I knew. Not what exactly but I knew it would change everything.

You couldn’t even say it. You tried to write it but halfway through your first Cyrillic letter you started laughing. I still remember that laugh, because it was the ugliest sound you’d ever made. I was nearly glad when you started crying because I hated that laugh and I hate even more that I will never forget what it sounds like.

In the end, you just shoved a piece of paper into my hand, your face buried in my shoulder.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

I remember reading it nearly five times, wondering what exactly you were trying to say. I think I was quiet for too long because the one word you said to me was “Me”.

You. You had cancer.

You were always healthy, we all were. We’re in the business of keeping our bodies in top condition and you were the best of the best.

And you got cancer.

It made no sense, none whatsoever.

The Doctors were quite hopeful, you said. You weren’t too old and fit and hey - thanks SHIELD for the great healthcare plan.

So it kind of was forgotten for a while again, not talked about. We trained, we went on missions, we saved the world. And if you had to catch your breath more often, no one mentioned it. If your skin looked a little more sickly, like old and brittle paper, it was ignored.

For all their smarts though, it took them a long time to get their heads out of their asses and tell you that you needed to start chemo.

They loved you too much as their little lab rat. Experimental treatments, new technologies – they got to try it all on you.

I remember the first time I woke up because you head puked all over the pillow. That first round of chemo hit you hard and I had to carry you into the bathroom while you screamed at me to put you down. You said you could walk by yourself but then you collapsed in front of the toilet and started heaving again. That’s how I broke the lamp, by the way. You were fucking puking your guts out and I was putting new covers on the pillows and I just got so fucking angry. Just turned around and punched the lamp.

Considering how long it took them to finally come clean about the chemo, it really took them no time at all to realize the chemo wasn’t working. More aggressive is what they suggested and you got this mad gleam in your eye and told them to go for it.

There was no enemy Natalia Romanova had ever faced and not triumphed over. This was another battle for you and you were determined to win. We all were.

I remember the first morning when you woke up and our pillows where practically covered in your hair. You just got up and locked yourself in the bathroom. Come to think of it, a lot of the shit stuff happened in those two rooms. Again, I changed the covers and then I sat down in front of the closed door and waited.

It took you three hours and then I heard the buzz of my razor and when you opened the door, you wouldn’t even look at me.

Remember how, when I came home that night and you told me I wasn’t allowed to kiss you anymore? That fucking hurt, by the way. Which was why I reacted like a shithead and I still don’t understand how we ended up screaming at each other when all I wanted to do was take you in my arms.

We did have fucking amazing sex that night. We were always good at that. Angry sex and make-up sex and that one was in the top 5 at least.

I meant it when I told you I didn’t care about your hair. Of course your body is more beautiful with those red curls and of course I would have been happier if you didn’t have to lose it. But you had to and, fuck, you are more than your hair.

Of course I made you watch when I shaved my own head and it became a game, nearly. Seeing who of us got hair back quicker and creeping people out running around bald and without a care in the world. Or something like that anyway.

I know this doesn’t really sound as bad as it was but, somehow, it wasn’t. Not compared to after. Not compared to when you were taken off active service permanently because you just couldn’t keep up anymore.

Nothing compared to when they said there was nothing else they could do.

Another thing I will forever be sorry for, though I know I apologized for that and you forgave me. I still want to say it again. I am so sorry, baby, so sorry that I left.

I couldn’t deal.

Before, it had always been … it’s what we do. Someone shoves a big bad in our face and we fight it until we win. There were close shaves here and there, but we would just fight on.

They said there was no way to fight anymore and that seemed so ridiculous, so fucking wrong …

I am so sorry.

You were the stronger one, as always.

While I was off - seeing who would surrender first, my liver or my fear - you flew halfway across the world trying to find a cure, fighting on. Funny how, when know it’s coming, that light at the end of the tunnel, you suddenly start to believe in things you didn’t even know existed before. Healers and mantras and meditation and religion.

When you didn’t check in for two weeks after leaving for Brazil it was Fury who came to me and kicked my ass so bad it still hurts today. Well, Fury, Cap and Stark.

It was hell, seeing you in Brasilia, in that fucked up crack-den of a bar. That time, you really were a little ugly. Hair half-grown back but unwashed, so drunk you could hardly walk and that Marijuana pipe in your hand acting as if you’d found god.

I wasn’t angry though. I know you never believed it but hell, if anyone deserved to crack and go crazy for a bit, it’s you.

Because suddenly we both realized one thing – the only reason we were never afraid of death was because we thought we wouldn’t see it coming. Funny how suddenly every civilian seams braver than us.

I don’t think I ever learned so much about the religions and believes of the world than I did in the weeks after Brasilia. I thought I knew a lot before but hell, there was a lot of shit I used to laugh about before and suddenly I was sitting there while you were lying in a circle of berg crystal while people chanted gibberish.

And again and again, we hoped. And there were times and you seemed better, when you weren’t as pale or when we would actually hike through the Indian mountains.

Still, it went bad quickly after that, didn’t it?

Wasn’t that the last big fight? When I asked if we shouldn’t go home and you got angry and said I just wanted to run again. Called me a cowered and the worst mistake of your life. But I could see it. Could see how every morning, you looked weaker, your skin was more hallow, your eyes wider and your skin got so thin and papery, I was afraid of breaking it just by touching you.

But you didn’t want to leave. Going home would be admitting defeat and you wouldn’t do that. You would go down fighting and I was by your side. Because it’s what partners do and I’d fucked that up once already, I wasn’t going to do that again.

When you collapsed in Tibet, I called Stark.

No idea if you really ever knew that. You were unconscious the whole flight back and when you woke up again in New York, you never even said anything about it. You just opened your eyes, realized where you were and … you broke.

That was the day you died the first time.

You never said it, but I know you hated yourself from that day on. Hated yourself because you were weak and I think it might have been the hate that kept you going for longer than anyone thought.

Those last few days, when you were so high on morphine because of the pain, all you did was fight. You had no idea who I was or anyone, you just kept on swearing and screaming and more than once you knocked me out. I don’t know who you fought in those days. Yourself or the cancer or something else but baby, that was the fight of your life.

When you opened your eyes on your last day though, you were at peace.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that beautiful. If I didn’t love you already, I would have fallen in love with you all over again.

There were no more demons behind your eyes, no regrets or fears. Never was your smile wider or your touch kinder.

It was a perfect day.

We did ordinary things. I bought you your favorite ice cream and Tony was a prick and Thor carried you outside and we all spend hours in the snow. Jane and Darcy build that stupid snow man and we made snow angels and Bruce brought his hot chocolate and Steve painted you.

I love that painting.

I am not angry that you decided to go on your own. I can understand it. And I am thankful it was quick and painless. Apoplectic stroke they called it.

One second you were there, and the next you weren’t and I had just gone to hang up my wet coat after tugging you back into bed and making sure you were warm.

I walked out and you laughed at me for my wet ass, I walked back in and you were gone.

And now here I am. That part that I mentioned earlier, when I said that before today you had the shittier life out of the two of us. I think at this point mine has yours beat.

Because now I here I am. Without you.

I know that, wherever you are, you’re kicking ass and it makes me smile sometimes. If there is a heaven, I am pretty sure everyone is already scared shitless of you.

You make all of the fuckers pay, baby, if they deserve it.

I’ll try and keep things running down here.

And if I sometimes break down and fuck up, please don’t be angry with me. It’s just fucking hard without you around. But I’m trying, I promise you I’m trying.

For you, I’ll always be trying.


End file.
